Nevada HOA Records Inspection

Section 1: Overview

Nevada regulates its homeowners associations closely. The state built its rules on the Uniform Common-Interest Ownership Act and placed them in Chapter 116 of the Nevada Revised Statutes, and that chapter gives every unit owner a detailed right to inspect association records. NRS 116.31175 sets the heart of that right. It puts a firm 21-day clock on the core financial records, caps what an association may charge for copies, lists the records an association can withhold, and adds a per-day penalty when a board does not comply. Behind all of it stands an enforcement path that runs through the Real Estate Division’s Ombudsman and the Commission for Common-Interest Communities and Condominium Hotels.¹

Two provisions carry the records duty. NRS 116.31175 governs the general books, records, and other papers. NRS 116.3118 governs the financial records tied to resale and the broader right to inspect, examine, photocopy, and audit. Nevada repealed the former NRS 116.31177 in 2023 and folded its substance into NRS 116.31175, a useful reminder that the current statute text controls, because Nevada amends Chapter 116 nearly every session.^2,3 NRS 116.31175 spells out the records an association must keep and make available, the production timeframe, the copy-charge cap, and the exceptions, so re-check those figures against the current text each session.¹

Nevada also offers a route that most states do not. Beyond the courts, an owner can turn to the Real Estate Division, the Office of the Ombudsman, and the Commission, each of which can act on a records dispute, and NRS 38.310 requires the parties to try alternative dispute resolution before they file certain civil actions over governing documents.^4,5 Within the national picture, Nevada lines up with the hard-clock states — Florida and California — rather than with states that apply only a reasonableness standard or that lean on corporate-law inspection rights. The table and the detailed sections below lay out how the mechanics work.

Section 2: Quick-Reference table

Quick-Reference: Nevada HOA Records Inspection

Section 3: The records-inspection framework in detail

3A. Records subject to inspection

NRS 116.31175 is the core records statute, and it applies uniformly to condominiums, planned communities, and cooperatives organized as common-interest communities under NRS Chapter 116.¹ The statute directs the executive board, on the written request of a unit’s owner, to make the association’s books, records, and other papers available for review. It lists, without limitation, the financial statement, the budgets required under NRS 116.31151, the reserve study required under NRS 116.31152, and all contracts to which the association is a party, along with all records filed with a court in a civil or criminal action to which the association is a party.¹ NRS 116.31175(5) adds a second category: the board must keep a searchable general record of each governing-document violation, other than a failure to pay an assessment, for which it imposed a fine, construction penalty, or other sanction, with personal identifying information removed.¹ A companion provision, NRS 116.3118, requires the association to keep financial and other records, to make them reasonably available for a unit’s owner and his or her authorized agents to inspect, examine, photocopy, and audit, and to keep financial records detailed enough to support resale disclosures under NRS 116.4109.^6,13 The records right in Nevada is statutory, not a creature of the declaration or bylaws, and the parties may not vary the chapter by agreement except where it expressly allows.¹⁴ Condominium hotels run under a distinct regime, NRS Chapter 116B, and NRS 116.31175 does not govern them.⁷ One practical note on section drift: Nevada repealed the former NRS 116.31177 in 2023 and consolidated its substance into NRS 116.31175, so older citations to 116.31177 no longer describe current law.³

3B. The request-and-response sequence

A unit’s owner holds standing, and the Ombudsman may act on an owner’s behalf.¹ NRS 116.31175 imposes no proper-purpose requirement. A written request is the trigger, and the statute does not condition access on the owner stating why the records are sought.¹ The statute requires a written request but prescribes no particular content or delivery method beyond that. For in-person review, the association makes records available at its business office or a designated business location not more than 60 miles from the physical location of the community, during regular working hours.¹ The single highest-value timing rule is the copy deadline. Under NRS 116.31175(2), the board must provide a copy of the financial statement, the budgets, and the reserve study to a unit’s owner or the Ombudsman within 21 days after receiving a written request.¹ That 21-day clock applies to those enumerated financial records; the statute frames the broader universe of books and records as available for review during working hours rather than subject to a separate numeric deadline. On charges, the same subsection requires the association to provide copies of those financial records in electronic format at no charge, and only if it cannot provide electronic format may it charge a fee to cover the actual cost of a paper copy, capped at 25 cents per page for the first 10 pages and 10 cents per page thereafter.¹ Separately, when an owner reviews books, records, contracts, or other papers, the board may not require payment of more than $25 per hour for that review.¹ These figures reflect the current statute as amended in 2023, so verify them against the live text each session.³

3C. Withholding, confidentiality, and the membership or owner list

NRS 116.31175(4) sets out the records an association may lawfully withhold. First, it exempts the personnel records of association employees, except for the number of hours worked and the salaries and benefits of those employees, which stay accessible.¹ Second, it exempts records relating to another unit’s owner, including any architectural plan or specification an owner submitted during a governing-document approval process, subject to the carve-out for the de-identified violation records in subsection 5.¹ Third, the board may hold back documents that it is still developing for final consideration and that have not yet reached an agenda for final approval, including draft minutes, a draft reserve study, or a draft budget, until they reach the agenda stage.¹ Nevada does not provide a separate statutory membership-list or owner-list inspection right of the kind some corporate-law regimes carry, and it sets no commercial-use restriction or opt-out for such a list; instead, the protection of other owners’ information runs through the subsection 4(b) exception for records relating to another unit’s owner.¹ On attorney-client privilege and pending litigation, NRS 116.31175 does not list a freestanding privilege exception; in fact, the statute affirmatively makes all contracts and court-filed records in actions to which the association is a party available to owners, which narrows what an association can shield by labeling it litigation-related.¹ An association that relies on privilege should ground that position in general Nevada privilege law, not in a specific carve-out in the records statute.

3D. Remedies and enforcement for noncompliance

Nevada gives owners two enforcement channels. The statute itself supplies a self-executing penalty: under NRS 116.31175(3), if the board fails to provide a required copy within 21 days, it must pay $25 for each day it fails to provide the records.¹ The statute also routes disputes to the Ombudsman, who under NRS 116.31175(6) may, on an owner’s written request, review the books and records on the owner’s behalf if the board refuses access, and who may ask the Commission to issue a subpoena for production if the board then denies the Ombudsman access.¹ That feeds Nevada’s broader administrative apparatus. The Real Estate Division within the Department of Business and Industry administers Chapter 116; the Office of the Ombudsman for Owners in Common-Interest Communities and Condominium Hotels assists owners and accepts complaints; and the Commission for Common-Interest Communities and Condominium Hotels exercises disciplinary authority.^4,15 Jurisdiction over alleged violations rests with the Division, Ombudsman, Commission, and hearing panels, and an aggrieved owner may file an affidavit of an alleged violation with the Division to begin that process.^8,10 Associations must register with the Ombudsman, which keeps the regime tied to the regulator.¹⁶ These administrative remedies run cumulatively with court action, not in place of it.⁹ An owner may also pursue a civil action; NRS 116.31183 preserves a separate action by an owner, and trial-level disputes proceed in the Nevada District Courts, with appeals to the Nevada Supreme Court, which under its push-down model may assign a case to the Nevada Court of Appeals (created in 2014).^11,12 Before an owner may file a civil action over the interpretation, application, or enforcement of governing documents, NRS 38.310 requires mediation or arbitration; whether that ADR prerequisite attaches to a records claim resting purely on the statute rather than on the declaration is not firmly settled, so treat a records demand intertwined with governing-document interpretation as likely subject to ADR.⁵ Manager licensing under NRS Chapter 116A sets context for who handles records day to day rather than a records-enforcement mechanism, and the nationally prominent super-priority lien under NRS 116.3116 is an assessments topic, not a records one.^17,18

Section 4: Recent legislative and judicial activity

A. Recent bills

Nevada’s Legislature meets in regular session only in odd-numbered years. So the most recent records-specific amendment comes from the 2023 session, the 82nd, and the 2025 session, the 83rd, changed nothing in the records-inspection rules.¹⁹

B. Recent rulings

No published decision from the Nevada Supreme Court or the Court of Appeals in the past three years interprets NRS 116.31175 or the owner’s records-inspection right. One 2025 Court of Appeals matter, Divina Piazza v. Spring Mountain Ranch Master Association (No. 88493-COA), turns on the actual-damages requirement for a civil action under NRS 116.4117 and on a retaliation claim under NRS 116.31183. It does not touch the records statute, so it states no rule on records inspection.²⁰

C. Active legislative debates

Watch the bills that did not pass. In the 2025 session, a broad industry bill, SB 433, proposed to let associations charge the actual cost of producing records, and it would have replaced mandatory mediation of governing-document disputes with nonbinding arbitration. It died in committee. A separate measure, SB 121, cleared the Legislature but drew a veto on June 5, 2025; it dealt with landscaping, collection, and parking, not records. The records framework stands unchanged.¹⁹

Section 5: National positioning and related coverage

Nevada sits at the heavily regulated, prescriptive end of the national spectrum. Its UCIOA-based statute pairs a detailed records right — a 21-day production clock for core financial records, a copy-charge cap, and a listed set of withholdable records — with something most states lack: a standing administrative apparatus. The Real Estate Division, the Ombudsman, and the Commission can enforce records access without sending an owner to court.^1,4,15 That places Nevada alongside Florida and California as a hard-specification state, not a reasonableness-standard or covenant-primary state, and the administrative enforcement route remains a Nevada feature. For a multi-state operator, the practical result is a heavier compliance load than most states impose: a fixed production timeline, a registered-association regime tied to the Ombudsman, a commission with disciplinary authority, and a possible ADR step before governing-document disputes.^5,16 The most recent session, in 2025, did not change the records timeframe, the copy cap, or the enforcement framework. They all remain as set in 2023.¹⁹

HOA Weekly refreshes its Nevada records-inspection coverage each quarter, as the Legislature and the Nevada courts act. Federal frameworks — the Fair Housing Act, the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act, and the FCC’s OTARD rule — apply to Nevada associations no matter what the state framework says.

Footnotes

1. Nevada Legislature, NRS 116.31175 (Maintenance and availability of books, records and other papers of association) ↩
2. Nevada Legislature, NRS 116.3118 (Maintenance and availability of certain financial records; right to inspect, examine, photocopy and audit) ↩
3. Nevada Legislature, SB 417 (82nd Session, 2023), Chapter 234 (statutory history of NRS 116.31175 reflects “A … 2023, 1478”; consolidation of former NRS 116.31177) ↩
4. Nevada Legislature, NRS 116.625 (Ombudsman for Owners in Common-Interest Communities and Condominium Hotels: creation, powers and duties) ↩
5. Nevada Legislature, NRS 38.310 (Limitations on commencement of certain civil actions; ADR prerequisite) ↩
6. Nevada Legislature, NRS 116.3118 (financial and other records; inspect, examine, photocopy and audit by owner and authorized agents) ↩
7. Nevada Legislature, NRS Chapter 116B (Common-Interest Ownership: Condominium Hotels) ↩
8. Nevada Legislature, NRS 116.750 (Jurisdiction of Real Estate Division, Ombudsman, Commission and hearing panels) ↩
9. Nevada Legislature, NRS 116.755 (Rights, remedies and penalties are cumulative and not exclusive) ↩
10. Nevada Legislature, NRS 116.760 (Right of aggrieved person to file affidavit with Real Estate Division) ↩
11. Nevada Legislature, NRS 116.31183 (Retaliatory action prohibited; separate action by unit’s owner) ↩
12. Nevada Legislature, SB 417 (82nd Session, 2023) bill page and enrolled text ↩
13. Nevada Legislature, NRS 116.4109 (Resale of unit; certificate of resale) ↩
14. Nevada Legislature, NRS 116.1104 (Provisions of chapter may not be varied by agreement, waived or evaded; exceptions) ↩
15. Nevada Legislature, NRS 116.600 (Commission for Common-Interest Communities and Condominium Hotels: creation) ↩
16. Nevada Legislature, NRS 116.31158 (Registration of associations with Ombudsman) ↩
17. Nevada Legislature, NRS Chapter 116A (Regulation of Community Managers and Other Personnel) ↩
18. Nevada Legislature, NRS 116.3116 (Liens against units for assessments; super-priority lien) ↩
19. Nevada Legislature, 83rd (2025) Session, bills signed by the Governor (no enacted amendment to NRS 116.31175 or NRS 116.3118) ↩
20. Nevada Judiciary, Appellate Case Lookup (Divina Piazza v. Spring Mountain Ranch Master Association, No. 88493-COA; NRS 116.4117 / NRS 116.31183 matter, not a records-inspection decision) ↩